Today we are on a main County north-south road which runs from the Atlantic Ocean on one end to the bridge to Connecticut on the other end which they never built. This road is actually quite favored by serious bicycle riders, and is also popular with 22 wheel gravel trucks who devoutly believe that 75 mph is an ok speed in a 55 mile zone, despite knowing it would take them six city blocks to stop.
Note that the engineers have not only taken the entire bike path for their drain, but additionally have cleverly made any escape impossible with a guard rail situated to the right.
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Next, an opportunity to develop a new ‘skill set’ *gag* of “precision” riding. Note that the normal mountain bike tire would have less than ONE INCH of clearance on either side of this path.
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And the best for last. Piece de Resistance. The “green” highway engineers have pretty much outdone themselves on this one. Note that the holes in the drain are specially designed to parallel the path of the bicycle wheel, ensuring that it is absolutely impossible to drive over it at any speed.
But wait, there’s more! This particular bike killer is also, and at the same time, located right at the base of an entrance ramp, so that with any luck, accelerating vehicles will be looking left over their shoulder for southbound traffic and not paying ANY attention to bicycles on the shoulder who HAVE to veer into the roadway or die.
Thanks guys!
8 comments:
In the "for what it's worth" department, the designers of this site have arbitrarily and without my knowledge, moved the text and photos to places other than where I put them. It may look better than I intended, but it is NOT what I posted. I do not approve of computers pretending they know more about what I want than I do.
I think it's about the width of the posting box Darling.
In any case, wonderfully illustrative post! Sadly, As we've both experienced, the road belongs to the motorists. It's a scary world out there for the cyclist.
Fin you be careful buddy...
Thanks. I am. I was just pleased to be able to crank out 20 miles at once.
I used to do sixty plus in a day without a thought, and did two days of over 100 miles, but recently, twenty is rather more than usual.
American roads are definitely not biker friendly. Of course, it's even worse for bikers here in Thailand.
You would like a project here where the city obtained the land of a railroad company and where the tracks ran thru the city the city made trails paved etc, benches land scape where the rail road tracks were. calling it rails to trails. Great for walking biking etc
Matter of fact Tex, my clever fiance from Almost West Texas set up such a ride for a Thanksgiving. We rode from Weatherell to Mineral Wells or something sounding like that. It was twenty miles or so, and at the end she had everything for a real Thanksgiving picnic by the caboose sitting there. Her sister went along for the ride as well and we all had a fine time.
Where my Mom and Dad lived in the Clearwater Florida area, they had a similar trail up to Tarpon Springs which I rode a few times. Good stuff!
I do NOT see a bike path in any of those pictures. That's just the line they paint on the side of the road for less than - lucent - drivers of vehicles to tell them that they are getting too close to the edge of the road. It's pretty scary to ride bikes on any roadways these days - hear news of bikers getting hit/run over/killed frequently here.
ben
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